193800 - Initiate a push for a plugins standard

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Brian 'netdragon' Bober]

We need a plugins standard that can be cross-platform, cross-browser, and
doesn't favor one browser over anothers' implementation, but based on the best
of all camps. It would have to be agreed upon by all browser makers.

Another issue is that various plugins that perform similiar functions have to be
detected, etc because the way they perform the functions (i.e. in js) are
incompatible and you often have to install a new plugin which messes up or takes
over for the one you are already using when you don't want it to. Maybe it could
talk about a way to allow conflicting plugins to coexist simultaneously without
causing problems. It would be nice if there were some standard methods, etc

It could be a community or a body like w3c. I think a community would be better
at first.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

I don't think anyone has the time for this.

Comment 2

[Brian 'netdragon' Bober]

I actually wrote this after talking with a KDE developer. He bookmarked this
bug, so if anyone is interested in it, he'll probably see it if they mention it
here. 

Is a plugins API standard for all browsers (konqueror, mozilla, IE, opera, etc)
something that could be agreed upon? It would definately facilitate the creation
of plugins, and make it so that plugin writers are less likely to leave a
browser out of the loop.

Peter: Is this something that could be done with a committee of some sort? The
committee probably wouldn't have to devote a lot of time to this since there is
no rush.

Comment 3

[Peter Lubczynski]

This started last year:
http://www.w3.org/TR/CX

Comment 4

[Brian 'netdragon' Bober]

See also:
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/30/1258204

Comment 5

[Benjamin Smedberg]

plugin-futures and the standard NPAPI exist.